Lab synthesized embryoids aren’t custom built people but they bring the world one huge step closer to that ethically dubious day. A team of biological engineers made up of researchers from both the U.S. and U.K. say “they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.” Humans won’t actually be needed much longer. At least, not for reproduction. It’s a Brave New World, indeed.
Embryoids raise ethical questions
Even though these “embryo-like” embryoids really do mimic the “very earliest stages of human development,” getting them to develop further has too many challenges. Don’t expect a start date on the production of build to order babies.
The ones currently swimming around in Petri dishes “don’t have a beating heart or a brain.” That part is doable now but nobody is doing it. So they say.
According to the research team, they hope to “advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages.” While those are laudable goals, they also admit their research “raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the U.S., don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos.”
Fascinating to hear of the work on synthetic human embryoids – we spoke last year to the scientist behind their creation, @ZernickaGoetz @MZG_Lab about the preliminary steps tried with mouse cells. Till we know more, this may give the picture.https://t.co/z1GxWSZJte
— Roland Pease (@PeaseRoland) June 15, 2023
Embryoids of today could be your neighbors tomorrow. More likely, your landscaper. The first question which needs to be settled is whether or not artificially constructed life can be “people.” More specifically “persons.” That’s the word used in all the discrimination laws.
While embryoids remain in ethical limbo, the “pace of discoveries in this field and the growing sophistication of these models have alarmed bioethics experts as they push ever closer to the edge of life.” Compared to common test tube babies, this is a whole new ballgame. Aldous Huxley saw this one coming more than 90 years ago. His book Brave New World was published in 1932. Despite all the time we’ve had to prepare for it, we aren’t.
“Unlike human embryos arising from in vitro fertilization, where there is an established legal framework, there are currently no clear regulations governing stem cell derived models of human embryos,” explains James Briscoe, associate research director at the Francis Crick Institute.
Accepted but not published
In a presentation June 14 to the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston, Dr. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz described their work on embryoids. She’s a professor of biology and biological engineering at CalTech and the University of Cambridge. She can talk about it but can’t officially claim credit for anything until it gets peer-reviewed. The team’s “research has been accepted at a well-regarded scientific journal but has not been published.”
Similar to work done by a rival team in Israel, both groups had been working with stem cells from mice. Those versions “showed the beginnings of a brain, heart and intestinal tract after about eight days of development.” She started working with human cells.
Dr. Zernicka-Goetz says the embryoids her lab cooked up “were grown from single human embryonic stem cells that were coaxed to develop into three distinct tissue layers.” Those layers “include cells that would typically go on to develop a yolk sac, a placenta and the embryo itself.” Amazingly, “the embryo-like structures her lab has created are also the first to have germ cells that would go on to develop into egg and sperm.”
With news today that synthetic human embryos have been created from stem cells, it's a good time re-read “Embryoids: Unique Entities or Protected Like Human Embryos?”
The 2017 article explains the science and looks at legal and ethical questionshttps://t.co/nxMXegPTED pic.twitter.com/c38alYqnCU
— The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (@BioethicsCenter) June 15, 2023
After her audience in Boston suddenly gasped, she added, “I just wish to stress that they are not human embryos. They are embryo models, but they are very exciting because they are very similar looking to human embryos and very important on the path towards discovery of why so many pregnancies fail, as the majority of the pregnancies fail around the time of the development at which we build these embryo-like structures.” They may be different but not by much.
As far as she knows “it was the first time a human model embryo had been created with three tissue layers. But she stressed that while it mimics some of the features of a natural embryo, it doesn’t have all of them.” Embryoids should be able to “shed light on the ‘black box‘ of human development, the period following 14 days after fertilization, which is the agreed limit for scientists to grow and study embryos in a lab.”
When they reach their two week birthday, they’re aborted. The only reason they haven’t been implanted into a human and allowed to develop is because that’s illegal. Like bribery, tax evasion or money laundering. Nobody does those things either.
